You are purchasing a 2011 Topps Diamond Die Cut insert card #DDC-66 of Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.   The Diamond Die Cut card is die cut with a white diamond shining at the top. “Yaz” is pictured on the card in clear photography and is glossy to the touch.  Topps Series 1 and Topps Series 2 and Topps Update Series baseball cards contain a special "Diamond Giveaway" code card. When you enter the code on the Topps site, it unlocks one card for your collection, which you can trade and look at online.  The card can be a Topps card from 1952-2009, a diamond embedded 1/1 card or a special Diamond Die Cut card. In addition once you unlock your card you have a chance to dig in the diamond dig.  You can dig up and win instant prizes including a diamond ring, Topps 60th Anniversary Ring, Old packs of Topps cards or digital rings, the more digital rings you collect the more prizes you can win. Each card also has a “Diamond Deed,” that makes each player famous.   The first place Red Sox were two outs from falling from their perch on May 9, 1979- but their veteran left fielder would have none of it.  With his team trailing the Angels 8-7 in the bottom of the ninth, Yastrzemski blasted a two-run homer to produce the instant win.  As an added bonus, you will receive a 1983 Topps Superveteran insert card #551 and a 1987 Topps Twenty Years Ago insert card #314 of Carl Yastrzemski.  These cards are an absolute must have for any Hall of Fame, Boston Red Sox or any Yaz collector/fan/investor! 

 

Carl Michael Yastrzemski (nicknamed "Yaz"; born August 22, 1939) is a former American Major League Baseball left fielder and first baseman. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989. Yastrzemski played his entire 23-year baseball career with the Boston Red Sox (1961–1983). He was primarily a left fielder, with part of his later career played at first base and as a designated hitter. Yastrzemski is an 18-time All-Star, the possessor of seven Gold Gloves, a member of the 3000 hit club, and the first American League player in that club to also accumulate over 400 home runs. He is second on the all-time list for games played, and third for total at-bats. He is the Red Sox' all-time leader in career RBIs, runs, hits, singles, doubles, total bases, and games played, and is second on the team's list for home runs behind another Red Sox great, Ted Williams, his predecessor in left field. In 1967, Yastrzemski achieved a peak in his career, leading the Red Sox to the American League pennant for the first time in over two decades, in that season being voted the American League MVP, and was the last winner of the Triple Crown for batters in the major leagues until Miguel Cabrera achieved the feat in 2012.

Yastrzemski was born in Southampton, New York to Carl Yastrzemski, Sr. and Hattie Skonieczny. Both his parents were of a Polish background, and young Carl was bilingual from an early age. Raised on his father's potato farm, Carl played on sandlot baseball teams with his father, who, he maintains, was a better athlete than he was. "Yaz" attended Notre Dame on a basketball scholarship (his career Long Island high school scoring mark at Bridgehampton broke one previously held by Jim Brown) briefly before embarking on his baseball career.

Yastrzemski signed with the Red Sox organization, which sent him to the minor-league Raleigh Capitals in 1959, where he led the league with a .377 batting average, They then moved him to the Minneapolis Millers for the post-season and the 1960 season. Yastrzemski, who had studied business at Notre Dame, fulfilled a promise to his parents by finishing his degree at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., in 1966.

Yastrzemski began his major-league career in 1961. From the beginning, there was tremendous pressure on him to perform, as he succeeded to the position of the great Red Sox legend Ted Williams. He would prove to be a worthy successor at the plate, and a far superior defensive player with a strong arm, expert in playing off the Green Monster, Fenway Park's left-field wall. In 12 years as a left fielder, Yastrzemski won seven Gold Gloves and led in assists seven times.

While his first two years were viewed as solid but unspectacular, he emerged as a rising star in 1963, winning the American League batting championship with a batting average of .321, and also leading the league in doubles and walks, finishing sixth in the Most Valuable Player voting.

Yastrzemski enjoyed his best season in 1967, when he won the American League Triple Crown with a .326 batting average, 44 home runs (tied with Harmon Killebrew) and 121 RBIs. Yastrzemski's Triple Crown win in 1967 was the last time a major league hitter won the Batting Triple Crown until Miguel Cabrera in the 2012 season - conversely six different pitchers have since won the pitchers' version. He was voted Most Valuable Player almost unanimously (one voter chose César Tovar of the Twins).

1967 was the season of the "Impossible Dream" for the Red Sox (referring to the hit song from the musical play Man of La Mancha), who rebounded from a ninth-place finish a year before to win the American League pennant (their first since 1946) on the last day of the season. With the Red Sox battling as part of a four-team pennant race, Yastrzemski hit .513 (23 hits in 44 at bats) with five home runs and 16 runs batted in over the last two weeks of the season, and finished a mere one game ahead of the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins. The Red Sox lost the World Series four games to three to the St. Louis Cardinals, losing three times to Bob Gibson. In that season, Yastrzemski also won the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year and Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" Award.

In an article he co-wrote for the November 1967 issue of SPORT Magazine, Yastrzemski credited Boston's remarkable season to manager Dick Williams and an infusion of youth, including Rico Petrocelli and Tony Conigliaro. Referring to Williams, Yastrzemski wrote: "He got rid of all the individuality, made us into a team, gave us an incentive, and made us want to win."

In 1968 Yastrzemski again won the batting championship. Because of the competitive advantages pitchers enjoyed between 1963 and 1968 (prior to the lowering of the pitcher's mound), Yastrzemski's .301 mark in "The Year of the Pitcher" is the lowest average of any batting champion in major league history; however, he was the only hitter in the American League to hit .300 for that season against such formidable pitching, as well as leading the league in on-base percentage and walks. He had many more strong seasons, consistently finishing in the top ten in the league in many statistical categories.

In 1969, Yastrzemski enjoyed the first of two consecutive 40-home run seasons as he led the Red Sox to third-place finishes that year and the next. He got four hits, tying the record, and won the All-Star Game MVP in 1970, although the American League lost. His .329 batting average that season was his career high, but he finished second behind the California Angels' Alex Johnson for the batting title by less than .001. In 1970 Yaz led the league in slugging and on-base percentage, finishing third in home runs.

Although he hit but 61 home runs over the next four years (1971 through 1974) as the Red Sox finished second twice and third twice, he finished in the top 10 in batting, and top three in on base percentage and walks in 1973 and 1974, and led the league in runs scored in 1974.

In the 1975 All-Star Game, Yastrzemski was called to pinch-hit in the sixth inning, with two men on base and the American League down 3-0. Without wearing a batting helmet, he hit Tom Seaver's first pitch for a home run to tie the score. The three-run homer was the only scoring the American League did that night as they lost 6-3.

Yastrzemski and the Red Sox would suffer another World Series loss in 1975, losing four games to three to the Cincinnati Reds. Yastrzemski made the final out in Game 7 on a fly out to center, trailing by one run. Coincidentally, he also made the final out of the 1978 American League East tie-breaker game with a foul pop to third base. This game featured Bucky Dent's famous homer (although Reggie Jackson's home run was the eventual winning run). Earlier in the game, however, Yastrzemski began the scoring with a home run off left-handed pitcher Ron Guidry, who was having a career year (25 wins, 3 loses and a 1.74 ERA). It was the only homer the Cy Young Award winner allowed to a left-hander all season.

On May 19, 1976, Yastrzemski hit three home runs against the Detroit Tigers at Tiger Stadium. He then went to Yankee Stadium and hit two more, tying the major league record of five home runs in two consecutive games. In 1978 Yastrzemski, then 39, was one of the five oldest players in the league. In 1982, playing primarily as a designated hitter, an early season hitting streak placed him among the league's leading hitters and saw him featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated and played in that year's All-Star game.

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